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= How silent meditation helped me with nondual inquiry =
This is about how silent meditation helped me with nondual inquiry.
Silent meditation is different from inquiry, and helps prepare one for
doing inquiry. It helps in several ways, which I’ll say more about
below.
There are various forms of silent meditation and various
paths of inquiry. For example, Shamatha is recommended if one wants to
realize emptiness via analytic meditation.
Personally, I found
Zazen helpful for nondual inquiry. How can it help? It stabilizes the
mind so that the mind doesn’t get off track or fall asleep during the
inquiry.
Here is a very rough and schematic quasi-Vedantic
account of how this works. It’s not a DP account, but something that we
were taught in the Chinmaya Mission. Vedanta looks at the body/mind
apparatus as composed of various layers or sheaths of active energy. At
the grossest is the body. At a more subtle layer is the “emotional
body,” then the mind as controller of its activities. And more subtle
still is the intellect, the process of ratiocination, making connections
and insight.
All activities engage all of the levels, but some
activities have their center of gravity more on one level than another.
According to the present scheme, Nondual inquiry begins largely at the
energetic level of the intellect. But the insights permeate all levels.
And nondual insights deconstruct the levels altogether.
In
order that the intellect do its appointed job well, it needs to be
somewhat calm. It cannot be jumpy or inclined to nod off into sleep.
For the intellect to be calm, the less subtle levels need to be
somewhat calm as well. This is familiar - if there is emotional
turbulence, it is hard to think.
There are activities that
address each of the levels. Such as karma yoga or recreational dancing
or athletics for the physical level. Bhakti yoga or art or singing or
performing music for the emotional level. Raja yoga or study or
concentrated meditation for the level of controlling the mind. And
jnana yoga or mathematics or other kinds of coursing stuff out for the
intellectual level.
The calmer the levels that are less subtle than the intellect, the calmer the intellect will be able to be.
This is where zazen helped me. It came in at the level of the
control-of-the-mind level and smoothed things out wonderfully. Plus it
gives a taste of silence. For me, it helped the mind stay with the
subtleties of jnana yoga without a a rage of chattering thoughts, and
without getting drowsy and falling asleep.
Zazen is taught at
Zen centers. Phenomenally (not doctrinally) it is a process of keeping
the mind extremely steady on a subtle object like counting or the
breath. There are two things that could depart from that: a chatty
mind or a sleepy one. Whenever you notice that either has happened, you
simply go back to counting or following the breath.
Besides
calmness and stability and subtlety, I noticed physically healthy
things, like better digestion, more energy on the lower body and more
closely focused in everything where needed.
One can do zazen
earlier in the day, and then nondual inquiry later in the day. And
nondual inquiry will be supercharged. Of course there are other
preparatory activities that will help. This was just my experiences
with zazen!

...

Hi Andrej, Here are some examples of which inquiries were helped by Zazen....
I did years of inquiries, mostly before I did Zazen. The main inquiry I did with the aid of Zazen was later and extremely subtle: I was looking into why Truth and Reality were widely held to be nondual whereas I experienced a very slight, benevolent duality between witnessing awareness and the arisings that seemed to arise from/to it. There was no suffering (I was at the so-called "transparent witness" gestalt). But even so, I was drawn to this issue for over a year.
I happened to be doing Zazen at the time - I only realized later that it helped, and how it helped. How did Zazen help? I was already pretty good at focusing and keeping my attention on an object. My father had this too. He brought it his work home and did it at the large dinner table while the TV was on a few feet away and we kids were running around. It didn't bug him a bit! He taught this focus to us. We were a family of introverted artists, so it was easy. All my school, military and corporate experience helped with focus as well.
But this topic (subject/object distinction) was very slippery. In a word, Zazen helped make the mind more open and subtle. It quieted the mind so that it was more open to subtle insight coming from unexpected angles, as opposed to the usual ones. And it helped the mind recognize patterns and formulations of a vaguer and more subtle type.
Here's a physicalist-type example. Imagine putting a long hair in a phone book and then cover it with one page. Then shut your eyes and try to trace the hair with your fingertips

...

Kyle Dixon:

Sitting has been invaluable for me in my life, with positive, long lasting effects. I really cannot recommend it enough.
Also the more I sat, and the more stable my meditation became, the brighter my mind became, like increasing the brightness on a lamp.
Energetically things became very coordinated, like Greg mentioned, and what I would call instances of transcendent insight would erupt spontaneously. Which were like precursors to larger events of the same species.
Meditation if done right is just a fantastic supplement to any spiritual endeavor. It breathes life into the process and makes everything easier and more enjoyable.